MAMA’S boys are not just a Caribbean construct, they exist in every society, and may take on different dimensions, depending on what’s culturally accepted or allowed. In the Caribbean the mama’s boy is the man who hasn’t quite let go off his mother’s apron strings, and while many men are mama’s boys to some extent, some are more tolerable than others.

Then there is the other offshoot to the mama’s boy — that man who expects to leave his mother’s house and cleave to your bosom like you’re his second mom. He not only has an unhealthy dependence on his mother, even though he’s an adult, but he transfers that dependence to his partner, and she adopts this de facto parent role, in which she’s more his caretaker than his equal partner.

Have you ever been in a relationship in which you felt like you had to take on a motherly role with your significant other? For the women interviewed, unhealthy boundary issues meant that they were meeting their men’s physical, mental, financial, emotional, and social needs.

Yvette, 44:

He would cuddle up to my bosom at night like he was a baby, and even after we had kids, they were competing with him for attention. His mom had passed when he was a teen and I guess he never really got over it, so I felt like I took her place. I didn’t think it was weird at first, I thought he was just very loving, but when our first child was born and he would sit in the corner and sulk while she was breastfeeding because he couldn’t get to cuddle with me I started to Google things. I realised he had attachment issues, but he’s a good husband and father otherwise, so I didn’t want to rock the boat.

Hannah, 23:

I’m a pharmacist so he’d always rely on me to get his meds, and he was always sick because he had asthma and allergy problems. I was doing him a favour by filling his prescriptions, but it didn’t stop at that — he insisted on syrups instead of capsules, and wanted me to administer his dosage to him in spoons like he was a little kid. And when he was sick he literally reverted to baby stage, wanting soup and his blanket and sponge baths. I knew it wouldn’t last when one time he asked me to tell him a bedtime story because he couldn’t sleep, and I just called his mom and told her to come help take care of her child.

Melodie, 35:

This wasn’t really him expecting me to be his mama, but more him having this certain image that he wanted me to portray as a good wife. Before we were married he said he imagined his wife wearing a house dress while she worked in the house, and he even bought me a couple. He also wanted the house a particular way — curtains, shower curtains, and rugs, and even the type of furniture we chose had to reflect the more traditional style. It’s like he wanted to recreate his childhood. I also had to cook and serve his food in a particular manner, and he’d hand his entire pay cheque over to me, for me to use what I needed and then give him an allowance. I complied for a couple years, then just started doing my own thing because I wasn’t about to go back to 1985.

Christine, 39:

I dated this single father once, who was in a good job and very good looking, and I wondered why a man like him was still on the market. I soon found out why — he was just so strange. For example, when I’d cook for him and his kids I had to cut his food up, too, like cut the dumplings up the way you’d do it for a two year old, and sit there and cool his food if it was too hot. I also had to cut his nails every Sunday and clean his ears and burst bumps and blackheads. While I’d have been OK with doing these things as kind gestures on my own, it’s the fact that he demanded them that made me cringe.

Terry, 36:

My ex would complain that he couldn’t smell the fabric softener in his clothes when I washed them, and I had to iron everything, including his handkerchiefs and underwear. He did construction by the way, and would say that the men on the site always complimented him when his T-shirts smelt like Downy. He acted like a baby, and I felt like if I’d offered to put some powder on his neck and his bum and sent him off to work, he would have been OK. It was weird for such a thug to be so effeminate, but he said men should always carry themselves well, and his mom always did the same for his father.